The Warner sun. (Warner, Brown Co., Dakota [S.D.]) 1885-1???, 1887-02-25

the lighted piazza, down the peb-
bly, walk, down the rot IS, and
out on th3 sands and along the
beach in the starlight. When Bette
came in she was drenChed with dew;
but she looked divinely happy-too
divineIy happy to notice the dark dis
approval on the brOws of all the
mammas.
And the next morning Mr.. DunrObin
was gone-he and his trunks and his
horses and his yacot and his man. 1t
WAS a little yellow wreck OF Bette
that came into my room and threw
herself face down on the lounge and
sObbed out the story.
"Well," | said, s~oothingIy, feeling it
no time for a hOmily, and pitying the
little wretch for all, "there are plenty
left"
"There's nobody" she cried.
"There's nobody, I'd Just as lief you
knew it as not. I-I-Ilove him! And
O, the worst of this is, | deserve it!
But l can't let these people see. l
must go on Just tho same. I'll put a
little rouge on. My hearts broken.
I'm dead, dead, dead. l shall look in
the glass while Pm doing it, though,
and say to myself. And, Bette, give
this cheek a touch OF red; one need
not, sure, look ugly, though ones
dead. But let me hide there this
morning. Have you any rouge"
No one would believe that Bette
was disappointed, broken-hearted,
dead or anything of the sort that
night. She was recklessly, desperate,
ly gay. Dancing on the edge of the
volcano, she called it. And so she
was the next night, and the next, and
for g. week running, till all the chap
erOns in the house were getting wild
about her and expOstulating with me
and that was the wayI learned that
| was supposed to be her chaperon
and l couldn't think where it
would end. And then she went to bed
sick for a couple Of days, and Isaid to
myself that this was the end, anyway.
And then, one morning, when Thought
she was in bed still, and was Just get
ting ready to 90 and see her, she burst
into my room, radiant, rosy as a
peach, fresh as a new-blown flower,
and caught me, and covered my old
face with Caresses. 80, | must kiss
somebody" cried she. "And he isn't
here. And | must tell you. | can't
let anybody see it, actually see it, it's
too p~reciOus"'
And it was a letter from Mr.. Dun
robin; and in it he told frankly that
he had run away from her, ifshe chose
to call it so, because he felt there would
be no happiness foc him, or her either
in a marriage with such a difference in
age and taste, and temperament.
And O he had discovered there
could be no happiness without it.
And he was coming back to learn his
late.
"O!" she cried, bursting into tears,
cts perfectly dreadful that I'm so
wicked. I'm not fit for him! | don't
deserve him, | ought to be punished!
l shall be-O, l shall be! l shall tell
him everything. shall tell him how
l maneuvred, and schemed, and plot
ted, and"
"Bettie, it will finish everything"
at ought to, l can't help it if it
does. / won't let him take me be-
lieying Pm all Pm not. If there's an
other world, he would't know me in
it. And o, Pm afraid he wouldn't
want to. o, isn't it too bad l should
be SO wicked when l love him so, when
I'd die to do him good? And perhaps
the best good | can do him is to die.
But when that night she came in
from the beach, dripping with dow
again, and hanging on Mr.. Dunrobin's
arm, her face pale and shining as a
star, she stopped and bent over me,
facing a line of angry mammas, and
kissed my forehead.
'SWell. what did he say, Better" l
whispered. 81
''He loves me; he adores me-" muir
INJURED Bette. "He said-he said he
didn't care ."-Harriet Prescott Spot.
ford, in Harper's Bazaar.